If some pundits want to make a case that the Tea Party is dead, or dying, they might want to check with the New York Times. The paper of record rightly points out that in the people’s house, not only are conservatives and conservatism alive and well, they are actually “ascendant.”

But while the Senate passed a bill a year ago with some Republican support, there was no urgency to follow suit in the House, where conservatives dominate and the Tea Party is ascendant. In announcing the action, Mr. Obama signaled that he is increasingly willing to act unilaterally to carry out elements of his agenda that are stalled on Capitol Hill, even as he faces Republican criticism for his use of executive power.

“If the president insists on enacting amnesty by executive order,” said Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas who has been among the most active in opposing overhaul legislation in the House, “he will undoubtedly face a lawsuit and will find himself, once again, on the wrong side of the Constitution and the law.”

The Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, in McAllen, Tex., on Monday after visiting a Border Patrol station crowded with recently apprehended migrants, said 150 Border Patrol agents would be moved immediately from other parts of the country to the Rio Grande Valley. He said other Homeland Security officers and Justice Department officials, including immigration judges, were also being reassigned.